Starling milestones: Summer 2018

There’s been no slowing down for Starling Bank this summer. Read on for a recap of what we’ve been up to in July and how we’re getting on with our Roadmap.

You can now...

✓ Pay using our new, vertical debit card
✓ Search your transactions by merchant, payee or category
✓ Add notes and images to transactions
✓ Apply for a Starling joint account
✓ Receive personalised notifications for personal, joint or business accounts.

A new angle on banking

The big news for July was the launch of our new teal debit card. We’ve designed it in a vertical, or portrait, orientation to reflect the way people use cards. We also hope it reflects our determination to disrupt traditional banking. If you want to find out more about the design, have a look at our blog post.

We’re looking into the design of our joint account cards and will keep you updated on how we’re getting on.

The Appdate

We’re working hard to help our customers answer questions about using the Starling app in seconds. To help with this we've put the most popular questions front and centre in the app. There’ll be a continued focus on this going forward.

We've also put a unique 6-digit code in the app to make it easier for customers to confirm their identity when they contact us with a query. Now when you call customer service, you can just quote this number and we'll be able to help resolve your problem faster than before.

Screen updates to look out for include the payments screen and the card control screen. We’re replacing the grid of payees with a list of contacts recently paid that acts in a similar way to a call log. If you want to see all your payees, you’ll be able to simply scroll down for an alphabetical list.

We’ll also be making it even easier to pay someone for the first time. If we need more details, for example you’re paying someone overseas, then the list will expand to include the extra information required. We shared the progress on the payments screen with our Community and received lots of great feedback, so stay tuned for the update.

For card control, we’ve created a screen to share our card limits for personal and joint accounts. The daily transaction limit is £10,000 with a maximum of 50 card transactions in a day. The ATM withdrawal limit is £300 over a maximum of 6 ATM withdrawals. And for mobile wallet, the daily limit is £500.

Earlier this summer, in June, we introduced a gambling blocker feature that allows customers to block betting and gambling payments from their account. Last week we helped more than 500 customers control their gambling payments.

Bank Anywhere

As a mobile bank with no branches, we don’t have many physical touch points with our customers. So we’ve been out and about this summer to meet existing and future customers face-to-face. The message we’ve been promoting is that with Starling you can bank anywhere - on the beach, at Nan’s house, by the pool, walking the dog - anywhere!

In June we had a stand at the Taste of London food festival in Regents Park, London. In July we headed to Chichester, West Sussex for the Goodwood Festival of Speed, now in its 25th year of celebrating motorsport. In August we’re celebrating rural life at the Countryfile Live festival at Oxfordshire’s historic Blenheim Palace.

Hottest Fintech

As if all this wasn’t enough, we were named Hottest Fintech company at the 2018 Europas, the annual European Tech Startup Awards. We know we couldn’t achieve so much without your continued support – so thank you!

Where we’re going

Loans

As always, we’ve got more great updates lined up. We’re all about making money management easy. That’s why we will soon be offering term loans to help eligible personal account holders. If an unexpected bill hits your account, or you are faced with an unavoidable large expense, you’ll be able to spread the cost with a loan and choose a repayment time period and monthly repayment amount that suit you.

Current Account Switch Service

Thousands of you have been enjoying using our business and joint accounts, but you've been finding it hard to move from your existing bank as you've had lots of direct debits and payees set up. The good news is we're going to be launching our entirely in-app account switching process for joint and business accounts in the next two months.

An analysis of the latest figures on bank switching from the Current Account Switch Service, or CASS, showed more than six people switching to Starling for every person leaving in the first three months of the year. That was more than twice the success rate of the next highest bank.

Stay tuned

Look out for more updates on our activities and achievements on our blog and if you want to make sure you receive regular email updates make sure you’ve added your email to your profile via the app.

Article updated: 13th October 2022